A visualization of the electromagnetic spectrum; image created by NASA.
Where Science Meets the Book of Mormon: Come Follow Me Lesson: July 29 – August 4; Alma 36-38
In Alma 36:6-9, Alma said to his son Helaman, and to us, “For I went about with the sons of Mosiah, seeking to destroy the church of God; but behold, God sent his holy angel to stop us by the way. And behold, he spake unto us, as it were the voice of thunder, and the whole earth did tremble beneath our feet; and we all fell to the earth, for the fear of the Lord came upon us. But behold, the voice said unto me: Arise. And I arose and stood up, and beheld the angel. And he said unto me: If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God.”
This discussion between Alma and Helaman took place around 74 BC; the events he was describing, as recorded in Mosiah 27:18, occurred around 100-92 BC, “And now Alma and those that were with him fell again to the earth, for great was their astonishment; for with their own eyes they had beheld an angel of the Lord; and his voice was as thunder, which shook the earth; and they knew that there was nothing save the power of God that could shake the earth and cause it to tremble as though it would part asunder.” Because this event occurred some 100 years or more before the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it appears that the angel who appeared to this group of young men was a disembodied spirit — either a spirit of someone not yet born or that of someone who had died but had not yet been resurrected — perhaps even that of Abinadi, whose testimony had helped convert Alma’s father, Alma the Elder.
Alma and those that were with him beheld a spirit being “with their own eyes.” How did that happen? As per the picture at the top of this essay, the visual spectrum, that which we can see with our own eyes, is only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. At one end of the electromagnetic spectrum, the wavelengths of gamma rays (see below) are the size of an atomic nucleus. That size is much smaller than our eyes can perceive because the visual cells in our eyes (rods and cones) are around 10-7 to 10-6 m (0.5 to 5µ) in diameter and cannot perceive wavelengths below that range. Indeed, the wavelength of gamma rays in so short that they can pass between the nucleus and electrons of individual atoms.
A type of naturally occurring tar, called bitumen of Judea, has been known since ancient times as useful for staining wood and for providing dark colors in oil painting. It can be dissolved in various oils and applied to surfaces. It also has been long known that it will harden more rapidly when exposed to light. In 1822, the French inventor, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, discovered that if he made a tiny, pinhole opening in a box, known as a camera obscura, light coming through the opening could harden the bitumen at different rates depending on the intensity of light landing on a pewter plate painted with the material. He could then wash off the bitumen that had not hardened, leaving varying amounts of hardened bitumen attached to the plate. An image thus created, what he called a héliograph, (or “sun writing”), would exhibit a range of black to gray and white, depending on how much light had hit the plate during the exposure time — which was quite lengthy in those early days.
Niépce was joined in 1829 by another inventor and artist, Louis Daguerre, and the two set out to improve upon Niépce’s technique. After Niépce’s death in 1833, Daguerre continued to search for substances that would react more quickly to light exposure and would give a positive image rather than the negative image, created by héliographie. He discovered that a copper plate coated with a thin layer of silver would work. He first polished the silver-coated plate to a mirror finish; then exposed it to iodine fumes to create a photosensitive layer of silver iodide. The plate was then exposed to light through a camera, which created a latent image on the plate. That image was made visible by fuming the plate with mercury vapor and then fixing the image using salt solutions. The darkest areas of the image are unchanged, polished silver, whereas the lighter areas had a microscopically fine, light-scattering texture. The resulting “daguerreotype” images appeared either positive or negative, depending upon the angle at which it was viewed, the lighting, and whether a light or dark background was reflected in the metal. In short, daguerreotypes can appear down right ghostly. They were first introduced to the public in 1839.
One problem with daguerreotypes and other early photography was that the exposure times were very long, and if the subject moved at all, the photo would be double exposed resulting in what looked like a ghostly image. A lot of other aberrations could appear in early photographs, which were often interpreted as ghostly manifestations. With the new invention of photography, people began to wonder if, indeed, one could photograph ghosts, and attempts to photograph spirit beings date to as early as the 1840s. This interest in spirit photography grew with the popularity of Spiritualism during the Victorian era (1837-1901). Because of the flaws inherent in photography, there were lots of photographic hoaxes foisted onto the public purporting to be genuine ghost photographs. Still today, there is a debate and controversy as to whether spirit beings can show up in photographs.
In late February 1896, Henri Becquerel placed some uranium crystals, wrapped in paper, into a drawer with some photographic plates. A few days later, on March 1, he opened the drawer and developed the plates. Contrary to his hypothesis that the crystals absorbed sunlight and re-emitted it as x-rays, Becquerel found that an image of the crystals had been produced. Clearly, something was coming out of the uranium and exposing the photographic plates. The next day, Becquerel reported to the French Academy of Sciences that uranium emitted “radioactive” (radiationem is Latin for “a shining”) waves without any stimulation by sunlight. Those rays would later be classified by Ernest Rutherford as beta waves. Three years later, in 1899, Rutherford discovered a less penetrating form of radiation, which he named alpha rays. The following year, 1900, Paul Villard discovered gamma radiation, the most highly penetrating of the three. Villard employed a lead-shielded container with a slit to direct the radiation from radium onto a photographic plate through a thin layer of either paper, aluminum, or lead. Using this apparatus, Villard identified the three types of radiation: alpha rays can be stopped by a sheet of paper, beta rays can be stopped by clothing, a thin sheet of plastic, or a thin sheet of aluminum foil; gamma rays may be stopped by a few inches of lead or several feet of concrete.
Exactly one hundred years earlier, in 1800, the English astronomer William Herschel was measuring the temperature of the various colors of sunlight passing through a prism. He discovered that when he passed the thermometer into the invisible region beyond the red band of light, that the temperature was even hotter than it had been in the red band. Herschel proposed that there was some sort of “light” beyond the color red, which was eventually termed infrared light — meaning, “below red” light. The following year, in 1801, the German scientist Johann Ritter found that the region of the light spectrum just beyond the violet edge of visible light was more effective at turning silver halides dark than was the light spectrum itself. Once again, Ritter reasoned that there must be an invisible form of “light” beyond violet, which eventually became known as ultraviolet — “beyond violet” — light.1
Many of the theoretical concepts combining electricity and magnetism were summarized in a set of equations by the Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell, in 1864, who coined the term “electromagnetic radiation.” Then, in 1887–1888, the German physicist Heinrich Hertz produced radio waves, at the extreme long range of what is now called the electromagnetic spectrum (waves above 10 meters in length). Hertz created a transmitter that generated radio waves, by placing a pair of one meter copper rods end to end, each ending in a small zinc sphere with a spark gap in between, and larger metal balls or plates for capacitance attached at the outer ends of the rods. When electrical pulses from an induction coil was applied to the apparatus, it produced radio waves. Hertz detected the waves by using a loop of wire that had a small gap between the ends. A spark would be generated upon receipt of radio waves by the loop, which was acting as an antenna. By measuring the length and velocity of the waves, Hertz demonstrated that his radio waves were a form of light, but their wavelength is so long that the rod and cone cells in the human eyes cannot detect them. Radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. They range in length from the diameter of a soccer ball to that of our planet.2
However, electromagnetism is only one of the fundamental forces. The other three are: weak and strong interactions, and gravity. Weak interactions occur between subatomic particles and breaking those interactions results in radioactive decay — which generates alpha, beta, or gamma rays. Weak interactions and the electromagnetic force are different forces with different properties, but physicists believe they are actually different manifestations of a single force called the electroweak force.3
Strong interactions, also called the strong nuclear force, is the hypothesized force that keeps protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus. It also binds quarks inside those protons and neutrons. The strong force is around 100 times that of the electromagnetic force, some 106 times as great as that of the weak force, and about 1038 times that of gravity. The force carrier particle of the strong interaction is called a gluon. No one has ever seen quarks or gluons, rather, their existence is based on experimental results. Furthermore, we are a long way from understanding how these particles and forces relate to nuclear mass. For example, here is a statement form the May 2015 issue of Scientific American: “The mass of quarks accounts for only 2 percent of the mass of the proton and the neutron, respectively. The other 98 percent, we think, arises largely from the actions of gluons. But how gluons help to generate proton and neutron mass is not evident, because they are themselves massless.”4
And that is what we “know” about the “known matter” of the universe! Less than 5% of the universe is known, or regular, matter; the other more than 95% is unknown matter: dark matter and dark energy, which we, as yet, have no way of detecting. Furthermore, we can’t see the fourth fundamental force: gravity — we don’t even know what it is.
So, what does all this information have to do with seeing or not seeing spirits?
According to the Doctrine and Covenants Commentary by Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl,5 “On the 16th of May, 1843, a little company, consisting of Joseph Smith, George Miller, William Clayton, Eliza and Lydia Partridge, and J. M. Smith, went to Ramus [, Ill., near Nauvoo]. The Prophet and William Clayton stayed at Benjamin F. Johnson’s over night…In the evening [of 17 May 1843] the Prophet went to hear a Methodist preach. After the sermon he offered some corrections. On Gen. 2:7 he observed that it ought to read, ‘God breathed into Adam his [that is, Adam’s] spirit or breath of life;’ but when the word ruach applies to Eve, it should be translated ‘lives.’ He added the truths recorded in the 7th and 8th verses of this Revelation.” Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8 states, “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.”
So, Joseph Smith stated that we cannot see spirit matter with our regular eyes. Therefore, what is it and how might we see it “with purer eyes”? I propose that spirit matter certainly does not fall within the visual portion of the electromagnetic spectrum — or, likely, not anywhere along the electromagnetic spectrum. As a form of matter, perhaps it is comprised of and affected by the other three fundamental forces. It has been proposed that there exist dark quarks and dark gluons, which make up dark matter.6 The only thing we know about dark matter is that it exerts gravity within the universe — in fact 75% of the gravity in the universe. At present, that’s about all we know. Perhaps if we learn more about regular quarks and gluons, we will begin to understand where there is room for dark quarks and gluons. In addition, there are plans at the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN; European Organization for Nuclear Research) to build a bigger, more powerful accelerator and search for dark matter.7
As another consideration, “purer eyes” may mean “spirit eyes.” We know that we are dual beings: spiritual and material. We are told in Doctrine and Covenants 88:15, “And the spirit and the body are the soul of man.” We are also told in Doctrine and Covenants 77:2 that “…the spirit of man [is] in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created.”
We are only consciously aware of a tiny fraction of all the stimulus that enters our brain; the rest is ignored. It is possible that some of the stimulus we receive comes from our spirit self, which I think is entangled with our physical self and has a “cellular” structure parallel to that of our body. Perhaps, on rare occasions, when we see a spirit, as did Alma and the sons of Mosiah, the information from our spirit eyes may pass into the visual portion of our natural brain and make us consciously aware of what was seen.
Trent Dee Stephens, PhD
References
1. spectroscopyonline.com/view/electromagnetic-spectrum-history; retrieved 28 July 2024
2. science.nasa.gov/ems/05_radiowaves; retrieved 26 July 2024
3. symmetrymagazine.org/article/what-is-the-electroweak-force?language_content_entity=und; retrieved 28 July 2024
4. scientificamerican.com/article/the-mysteries-of-the-world-s-tiniest-bits-of-matter; retrieved 28 July 2024
5. Smith, Hyrum M. and Janne M. Sjodahl, Doctrine and Covenants Commentary, Deseret Book, SLC, UT, 1967
6. home.cern/news/news/physics/hunting-dark-quarks; 28 July 2024
7. Ibid
Comments